


The Last Dance

by imbellarosa



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, The Magicians - Freeform, also this is a story about free will, background quentin/alice, julia just wants answers okay, queliot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-07 21:58:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17968799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imbellarosa/pseuds/imbellarosa
Summary: (Or, why proof of concept is bullshit).Julia didn’t know when she started to realize that Q was hiding something from her, but by the time they went to wake up a goddamn mummy, she felt that she needed that last piece of the puzzle before proceeding down whatever dark quest the Monster had put them on.





	The Last Dance

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! So I started this show about two weeks ago and I've gotten completely hooked. It's so complex and it means so much. And Julia is my favorite. I cannot tell you what she means to me. ANYWAYS i'm all caught up, and I had this plot bunny that wouldn't go away. Set sometime after 4x05.

She finds him exactly where she expected to: curled in the farthest edge of the couch, knees pressed to his chest, reading his first edition copy of  _ Fillory and Further _ . 

“I thought you were gonna sell that,” she says. 

“Mhmm?” He looks up. “Oh. Uh. Yeah. I was. But then - Brakebills, and then...I don’t know. I know that Plover’s scum, but…”

“But his books help,” she finishes. 

“Does that make me a monster?”

“Q,” she sits down next to him and puts her head on his shoulder, “we are living with an  _ actual _ monster who’s on some warped Frankenstein-esque quest for violence. I think you’re fine.” 

“Yeah.” It isn’t an agreement, just acknowledgment. “It’s weird, you know? But I miss it. Fillory.”

“Well, you’re a king there, Q,” Julia laughs lightly. 

“No,” he shakes his head like he’s trying to shake a memory loose, “it’s not just that. It’s - I don’t know - it’s the only place that ever really felt like home, you know?” 

“Q,” she tilts her head up to look at him. “What’s going on? With Eliot, and the monster, and everything? You’re too tired? I mean, what the fuck Quentin?”

“I know...It’s just,” he takes a deep breath. “Okay so you know the key Eliot and I had to go get, right?”

“In Fillory of the past,” she agrees, “the one that took you fifty years to find, right? You said you had a son.”

“I - I did.  _ We  _ did. We had fifty years - a whole life. And...it was  _ good _ . Like yeah, sometimes it hurt and it sucked and people died and left and we grew old, and I had to spend a few years alone there at the end, but it was  _ ours _ . And it was beautiful. I mean, it unlocked the mosaic, so it had to have been.”

“I don’t know what that means, Q. What mosaic?”

“It was...it was a trick. We had to find a reflection of the beauty of all life. And when we got there, there was this damn mosaic and all the tiles. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations. And we thought we had to find the right image, and we would unlock the key. Like...remember in book 5, when Jane runs into the old man? I thought that we just had to beat him.

“And then the months turned into years. And we just...I don’t know. We fell together. And yeah, it was hard, and it was a weird life, but it was  _ ours _ . We got so old in the end, there. And he died. We spent so many years together, and when I buried him, I found the mosaic piece we needed. It was like - like it wouldn’t reveal itself to me until it was over. Our life together. Like it judged us, and found it worthy. And then Jane Chatwin showed up, and I  _ was  _ the old man, and you know the rest. Margo got the key. We never left.”

“Okay,” Julia nods. “And the rest of it?”

“The rest of it?”

“Q, in the park, the Monster - Eliot, whatever - said something to you. He said, ‘ _ who gets proof of concept like that _ ’? What did that mean? Why did you stop?”

“It’s just...it’s something I had said once. I said - I told him that we had proof. That we worked. So why the fuck not, right?”

“ _ You  _ said that,” she looks that the man who sits next to her, the one who used to be a boy who never got the nerve to ask her to prom.

“I...yeah. I did. And he said no. He said we would - he wouldn’t - choose us. Not when we have a choice. But I - I don’t know. I was so sure, you know? We worked. Lifetime guarantee.” 

“No offense, Q, but that’s bullshit.”

“What?” He puts his feet on the floor, poised to take off running.

“No,” she says and pulls him to her again, “I don’t mean...okay. Look. In timeline 23, Penny and I were like Romeo and Juliet, right? Even down to my death.  And our Penny is the same person, right? But he loves Kady. And I don’t know if that’s because they met first, or because whatever the watcherwoman changed was enough to make us incompatible, or maybe they make each other stronger than we did. But they work. And so did we. The difference is that, when it comes down to it, our Penny would  _ choose _ Kady. Over and over, no matter what.

“And think about it. All of this happened like a year ago, right?”

Quentin nods.

“Okay, so a year ago, you were getting over Alice, or trying to get back together w her, or whatever the fuck that was, right? And you would have died for her, too. And maybe in some other timeline, under some other circumstances, you two would have a beautiful family in some far off kingdom. A lifetime guarantee.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know that.”

“Exactly,” Julia says, “ _ you don’t know _ . The only guarantee we have are the choices we make. And, Q, if you love him, then it’s not because you know that it can work, it’s because you  _ want _ it to work. It’s because you don’t  _ want  _ to lose him, because you choose him  _ without  _ a guarantee.” 

There is silence for a moment.

“I just. It was home, you know,” he whispers into the silence. “And I don’t want home without him. And - and I know that he’s loud, and rude, and he drinks too much - although he’s worked so hard to get clean - and he would rather shoot first and ask questions later and he’s so scared of being happy because he’s never really been allowed to be and - but. 

“I don’t know. He’s kind. He cares about his people and his friends and he would give anything for them - he has, over and over. And he’s a  _ really good _ father, and a spectacular king, and he makes the best cocktails and the worst jokes, and he’s my best friend.”

Then he breathes and he looks at her.

“I - I mean,” he stutters. “You’re my best friend. It’s just…”

“It’s different,” she nods. “You want it to be different.” 

“Yeah. I do. And now there’s this damn  _ thing _ and it’s destroying him, and it’s hurting people, and it’s  _ evil _ and I  _ know it is _ . But sometimes, for like, half an instant, I see it and I think it’s him. And then I remember. And it doesn’t matter if Eliot wants me or not, if he loves me or not. I’ll be damned if I let this - this  _ whatever the fuck it is _ \- take him.” 

“Hey. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

“Yeah,” he looks at her, and he looks tired. “Maybe. But every time we’ve tried to fix it before, we just seem to fuck it up and leave it more broken than when we started. Maybe Alice was right about magic.”

“Okay, no,” Julia sits up. “I gave up  _ everything _ to save magic, and it was the  _ right thing to do _ . Magic is so much bigger than us. And I know that it’s hard right now, but somethings mean more than we do. 

“And I’m so sorry about your dad, and your son, and your wife, and everything else that we all lost along the way, but my God, Q. Look at us. Look at you. You’re a king. And you’ve been a father, and a friend and a husband, and you know what a beautiful life looks like. Because of magic. You’re right. It’s taken so much from us. But it’s given us some things back, too. And we’ll get Eliot back, too.”

“How do you know?” 

In this moment, she is reminded of the little boy who would point at the stars in the dark and make up maps to Fillory and create adventures in his mind because he could not stand the real world. 

“Because we have something that the Dark Lord knows not. A weapon that he doesn’t understand. You get me?”

“Yeah, alright,” he rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “Nerd.”

“I love you, Q.”

“Yeah,” he hugs her. “Me too.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments if you liked it! They keep me writing! Also, come say hi to me at imbellarosa.tumblr.com! (Bonus points if you found my Star Trek reference. Okay. So I'm the nerd. ;))


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